Motorola Debut i856 – Bad keyboard
Motorola Debut i856 is the first push to talk iDEN phone in a slider form factor. The phone is pretty basic and don’t expect any high end features from it. The handset is really slim and I will easily fit in to tightest of pants pocket. I am not saying that it is the slimmest phone around but it is definitely slimmer than most of the handsets I have had in my labs for testing. On the front, there is a 2.2 inch color display which is a bit small considering other handsets especially smartphones are having bigger displays. However, this just a mid range phone so I won’t complain much about the smaller screen.
There is a shortcut bar having a collection of shortcuts for the applications that you use the most on the phone. For moving through this bar, you just have to press the right and left direction buttons. Beneath the display, there is a navigation array which consists of the four way navigation toggle with OK button in the middle, two soft keys, music and Talk/End buttons. I didn’t have a good experience with these buttons, they were a bit spongy and pressing them wasn’t difficult.
On the Motorola Debut i856’s left side, there is the charger jack, the aforementioned push-to-talk button, volume rocker and the speaker key. On the right, there is a 3.5 mm headphones jack. I was glad that the manufacturer put in a 3.5 mm phone jack; you can connect any standard headphones on this jack. The phone has slider interface and for accessing the numeric keyboard, you just have to slide the phone up. Typing on this keyboard was not comfortable even though there was a plenty of spacing between the keys. The keys felt squishy just like the buttons on the navigation array. I didn’t have mishits but the keypad didn’t register my presses occasionally and it was quite frustrating. I won’t recommend this phone for people who lack patience.
Motorola Debut i856 has a 1.3 megapixel camera and it is located behind the slider. You will have to open the phone everytime to access the camera. I don’t mind this much but I was concerned about the low resolution of camera. I usually trash even 2 megapixel cameras on phones and was crestfallen to see that this device had a poorer resolution of 1.3 MP. The camera can also record video. Both the photos and videos are poor in quality. The memory card is located inconveniently behind the battery cover and you will have to open it everytime to swap cards. I would have liked it somewhere on the sides or bottom like the Nokia N73.
Features on the Motorola Debut i856 include the Push-To-Talk and there is also a good collection of messaging features and music player for grooving to your tunes when you are on the move. The cost of this phone is $170 but you don’t have to sign any service agreement with the service provider.
